The Continuing Story of Princess Noob and Sir Excellence
by Bakersworth-Street
Summary: Almost 4 years after the Realm of Doom incident, fate decides to throw Becky Baker and Hunter Hollingsworth back together again when they discover they are both students at the same university. Will the online romance they began so long ago finally get the chance to blossom into an IRL one?
1. Chapter 1

It was official. Becky Baker's favorite season was fall - specifically in D.C.

She stretched her arms out over her head and arched her back, reveling in the bright sun. It was early October, a balmy 68 degrees, there was not a cloud in the sky, and she had probably the best spot of all on Copley Lawn, which was as far away from the Ultimate Frisbee players as humanly possible.

She blinked, yawned, and then shifted forward again, her legs folded underneath her, furrowing her brow as she re-read the same page for the third time in as many minutes. Senior year was going to be tough – not as tough as all the time she had spent catching up with everyone else over the last two years but – well, that was a long, long story.

"Hello, Princess."

A distant memory from the very back of Becky's consciousness started to float upwards as she heard a familiar-sounding voice. With a British accent? Where had she heard that before?

Becky squinted as she looked up. Since it was so bright outside, it was hard to see exactly who was standing above her. They were very tall. And male. Wait a minute...it couldn't be...

"Hunter?" Becky asked. As she raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she lost her grip with the other and dropped the book she had been holding.

A deep chuckle emerged from above her as a much taller, much older Hunter Hollingsworth crouched down to pick up her book. "Once a noob, always a noob," he grinned as he gave her back the book.

Becky returned the smile and scrambled to get up to stand next to him. Her legs didn't seem to want to cooperate - her mom always told her she needed to stop curling one leg underneath her and sitting on it, because it always made her foot numb- and she felt a steadying hand on her elbow as Hunter helped her get up.

"I guess some things never change," Becky laughed. Now that she was standing up, she got a better look at her former classmate.

He was a lot, LOT different than she had remembered him from her time at Degrassi.

Besides being about a half a foot taller, with a more defined, angular jawline, Hunter also looked a lot more relaxed and comfortable in his skin. The nervous twitchy, angry, teen-angsty energy he had worn almost like a uniform at Degrassi seemed to have disappeared. She tilted her head in curiosity. Those blue eyes were still the same though. There always had seemed to be a bright intensity behind them. Especially when he had been angry with her.

He didn't seem angry now, though.

And now she realized she had been standing there, gawking at him like a, well, a noob.

Re-composing herself, she finally managed to ask the question she had been wondering since she first realized who he was.

"What - what are you doing here?"

Hunter chuckled again, a deep, pleasant sound that Becky thought suited him much better than the nasal scowling tone he had used the very infrequent times he had spoken to her at Degrassi. "Going to school, same as you."

Becky blinked in surprise. "Wait - you knew I went to school here?" How was that even possible? Becky had been friendly enough with the Hollingsworth clan at Degrassi, but she hadn't been particular friends with them at all. In fact, she hadn't seen or heard from any of them since graduation. She had heard stories about what they had all been up to, of course, especially about who they were all dating - how could she forget the Biggest Degrassi Story of 2016 when Maya and Miles became the IT couple of Degrassi their senior year? Come to think of it, all that news had come from...

"Imogen," he smiled affably as he completed her inner dialogue for her. "Ever since she helped out Frankie with her relationship issues, she kind of morphed into the go-to advice guru for the Hollingsworths. She's practically a family member at this point."

Becky nodded. "I remember she told me you had created some mega blockbuster app and had sold it for a lot of money before you graduated. Sounds like you could have skipped school altogether if you wanted to." She hadn't been surprised at all when she had heard about it at the time. The only Hunter she had known and remembered from Degrassi spent as much of his time as possible living in his online world. It made perfect sense that that was the place that he had found success.

Hunter smirked. "Found out later I hadn't asked enough for it. I hadn't even thought about international markets at all." He tapped the textbook he was holding. "So that's why I've gone from Hunter Hollingsworth, teenage prodigy app creator, to Hunter Hollingsworth, freshman studying international business at Georgetown. But what I'm most curious about is...how did YOU end up here, Becky Baker? I figured you'd be ensconced in a lab somewhere in Vermont studying Biology. Or so they had said at your class graduation."

"You were at my graduation?" Becky couldn't hide her astonishment.

A hint of color rose to his cheeks with this last statement, but quickly cooled away as he shrugged noncommittally. "Frankie forced us all to go. She wanted a loud cheering section for Imogen."

"Of course," Becky nodded. She had barely known Hunter when she had been at Degrassi, so why would he have come to graduation just to see her? It was a preposterous assumption on her part.

"You didn't answer my question," Hunter smirked playfully.

Becky's mind was racing. She hadn't felt so fish-out-of-water-esque since she had first moved here sophomore year. "I'm sorry - I'm just a bit distracted I guess," she replied apologetically. "It's also sort of a very, very long story. I don't want to keep you from where you were going."

Hunter shrugged. "I was actually just going to go get lunch at the dining hall but...you want to come get lunch with me at the Tombs instead? It'll be my treat. I figure I owe it to you after the awful way I treated you during the whole Realm of Doom incident." Another flash of slight awkwardness in his bravado peeked through at that last admission.

"You don't have to do that, it's really not necessary," Becky said dismissively. Maybe even a little too dismissively. She felt her face getting flushed and had no idea why she suddenly felt so flustered. She struggled to regain her composure. "I didn't handle everything very well to begin with. You had every right to be mad at me."

"You're changing the subject, and I absolutely insist," he said, the slight awkwardness she'd seen suddenly floating away as he confidently reached down to gather up her backpack and picnic blanket.

Becky knew one of her biggest flaws was her stubbornness, but even she could see when she was beaten in that department. She shrugged good-naturedly. "Hope you're not too tired then, because my story is so long and boring that it might just put you to sleep."

* * *

Becky didn't know how long she and Hunter had been sitting in their booth at the Tombs - by the looks of the traffic picking up in the below-ground student hot spot, it had to already be around dinnertime. She'd done almost all of the talking, which normally would have made her feel uncomfortable, but Hunter had been a surprisingly patient and eager listener. It was still surprisingly easy to talk to him – just like it had been during that one week, so very long ago, when she'd played Realm of Doom online with him before….well, before she had gone and messed everything up with her IRL sleuthing.

She'd told him about how she had started her freshman year at University of Vermont, ready to begin her new and challenging life away from home. How quickly she felt like she was spinning her wheels instead of going forward, even after just a few short weeks. About how Imogen begged and pleaded with her to please take the train down to DC over that Thanksgiving break and spend it with her instead of alone in her dorm in Vermont. She had remembered the entire conversation like it happened yesterday.

"Imogen, thanks, but really, I'm fine here." Becky had known for quite some time that she would not be going home for Thanksgiving, and had been surprisingly okay with it. Thanksgiving had become a bit of a non-holiday during the Baker family's years in Canada, since it wasn't celebrated there anyway. Things had also still been tense at home then, and Becky didn't need much of an excuse, financial or otherwise, to steer as clear of it as much as was humanly possible.

"As your best friend I absolutely refuse to let you stay in some cold, empty, desolate dorm when you could be here with me, ogling Bradley Cooper instead."

Imogen had confessed to Becky not long after their Degrassi graduation that she had a secret crush on the actor Bradley Cooper. Becky had found this to be absolutely hilarious at the time since he seemed to be the exact opposite of what she had always assumed was her pan-sexual friend's 'type.' She could not have been more wrong. When Imogen found out that Bradley was scheduled to participate in a forum at his alma mater, Georgetown, Imogen immediately put plans into place to head to DC. She WOULD be the first in line and in the front row, thank you very much, and already had an entire list of things she wanted to ask him during the open Q&A, including how she had plans for him to star in the off-off-off Broadway show that she was determined to have up and running by the summer of her freshman year. But she absolutely couldn't do it alone and could Becky please **please** come with her and offer moral support and warn her when she was freaking out too much, because she didn't want to scare Bradley away?

With a plea like that, it had been impossible to say no.

Imogen had splurged for a gorgeous hotel suite within walking distance of the campus. The girls had spent the first day of the break being tourists in DC, and on the second day, Imogen had insisted they go check out the campus so she would know the best spot to get coffee for her long wait in line the next day.

As soon as Becky had stepped on the campus, it had literally taken her breath away. It felt like she had found her home, that place she was meant to be.

If it was possible to fall in love with a place, Becky Baker fell for Georgetown that day. Hard.

Doubts had pricked at her mind all through the rest of that day and the next. Even during Bradley Cooper's forum. How she knew that she needed to be HERE, somehow. Her attention was especially piqued when the School of Foreign Service was mentioned, especially something about a major called Culture and Politics, and helping to harness people's passions for using the media and culture to ignite positive change in the world. The subject had always been near and dear to Becky's heart. She had been an avid volunteer since she was a little girl, and memories of the satisfaction she had working on important issues on Degrassi TV came flooding back.

 _This is what I should be doing_ , she thought to herself. _This is what I was_ _meant_ _to be doing_.

So she spent the second semester of her freshman year in Vermont filling out forms, wading through red tape, and most of all, trying to convince her parents it was the best move for her. It felt like her birthday, Valentine's Day and Christmas rolled into one when she found out she would be accepted as a transfer student for her sophomore year. Just like Bradley Cooper, apparently, or so Imogen told her when she found out.

So she headed to DC with one giant rolling bag and set up shop at Georgetown. She was lucky her first year there as her roommate was a very low-key girl named Bethany who was planning to spend her Junior year studying abroad. They got along well - sort of like work colleagues - but Becky couldn't hide her happiness when she heard she had secured a single room for her junior and senior years. She wasn't a recluse or hermit or anything - she did have a small group of friends, who were pretty much all a part of DC Reads, a literacy club for DC kids, and who were all just as passionate about community service as she was. But she liked having her own space, that was hers, and hers alone. Whether it had been a byproduct of her home life the last year and a half she was there, she didn't know. All she knew was that being on her own, in her own space, really helped her feel most like herself, if that made any sense.

She had been a bit disappointed when she had discovered that the casual, 'hook up' atmosphere was just as pervasive at her new school as it had been at her old one. No one wanted to have an actual, connected relationship with anyone, or so it seemed to her. Becky had known from experience that anytime a new girl showed up at a new school, it was inevitable she would get a lot of curious male attention. But when she made it very clear that her religious beliefs and the hook-up philosophy that most of the boys held near and dear didn't really mix, Becky had found that most of the guys who seemed so intent on wooing her quickly lost interest and then completely disappeared from her life. She really hadn't found anyone she had 'clicked' with in that way since she had arrived here. It had been the only downside to an otherwise amazing experience.

Hunter was aghast to hear it. "Becky Baker not only doesn't have a boyfriend, but hasn't had one for **years**? Impossible."

Becky narrowed her eyes at him from across the table. "You're teasing me now, aren't you?"

"No, it's the truth," he said. "It just seems impossible to me that not one guy in this entire school has realized how amazing you are." The color rose in Hunter's cheeks a bit at that admission. She wondered if he had even meant to say it out loud.

"That's really sweet," she smiled, "but it's actually been for the better, I think. Besides Adam, all the other relationships I had at Degrassi ended up hurting more than helping. I think I just kept jumping into relationship after relationship because deep down I really just wasn't over Adam, and I wanted that feeling I had with him back somehow." She looked down at her soda and twirled the straw in the glass.

"What was he like? I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but...from everything I'd heard about both of you from Miles before I started at Degrassi, you two kinda seemed like the least likely couple ever."

"This is going to sound weird, but it was really Adam's soul that drew me in the most," she beamed. "He was so funny, so brave, so determined. He radiated kindness and love." She grimaced at the last part. "Gosh that sounds cheesy." She looked at Hunter questioningly. "And what about you? Imogen still hasn't recovered from you and Arlene breaking up at the end of last year. I think she was your #1 shipper. She even had a name for it - Harlene, I think."

"I don't doubt it," he chuckled. "Arlene is - was - well, she was great. I'm sure you remember that I wasn't always the easiest person to get along with..."

"I may have recalled something about you threatening to turn me into a troll in the hallway..." Becky teased.

"Yeah, something like that. I know it's not an excuse or anything, but there was a lot going on then. Like, a LOT." Hunter flicked a grain of salt off of the table, seeming to weigh the benefits of continuing his train of thought.

"Please, you've spent about 3 hours listening to me go on and on," Becky encouraged him. "What happened?"

Hunter took a deep breath. "Well, besides all the awful stuff going on with my dad and my mom, I... it really was like torture growing up in Miles's shadow. For the first 14 years of my life, Miles was always the most popular, the most fun, and girls, well, girls have always loved Miles. And boys too, for that matter. I felt like I couldn't compete, and I even didn't want to. It was too hard. It just became easier not to even try...you know what I mean?"

Becky nodded encouragingly.

"It wasn't until the summer after freshman year that Miles and I finally started to become, like **real** brothers. I helped him see things my way and little by little he helped me see things his way. Frankie, well, Frankie is the whole reason I even got the courage up to start dating Arlene. I didn't know what to do, or what to say, or how to even let her know I liked her. Frankie translated the world for me when it came to girls – when it came to almost everyone, to be honest - and was my inspiration for trying to push my boundaries and give more people and the world the benefit of the doubt. I literally wouldn't have been able to contemplate going away to a school like this, by myself, if it wasn't for her always believing in me."

Becky smiled, remembering something Imogen had said.

"What? Why are you smiling?" Hunter asked playfully. "Fess up."

"It's just that Imogen once compared you guys to the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from the Avengers movie. Like you two could communicate telepathically or something."

"Got to give her props for that the next time I see her," he nodded. Becky laughed.

"Anyway, Arlene and I finally started dating the end of sophomore year. I think it really, really helped both of us move out of our comfort zones and try to really make the best of being at Degrassi. It was so great having someone away from home that I could just be myself with, not to mention someone who wouldn't be instantly bored with either playing online games or hearing about them. By the end of senior year, though, we both kind of felt like...well, like we were dating ourselves. Does that make any sense?"

"So what you are telling me is that Frankie and Arlene are the reasons you went from angry freshman to senior Prom King?" Becky grinned.

"I was hoping you hadn't heard about that Prom stuff," Hunter grimaced. "It was really embarrassing. And it was all Frankie's doing, I'm sure, although I still don't have any actual proof."

Their waiter - a boy Becky knew from her English class - appeared at their table. "I'd love to be able to let you stay here all night Becks, but there's a line at the door and the manager is getting nervous. So unless you guys are ordering something else..."

Becky smiled apologetically and reached for her bag. "Of course Simon, we were just..."

"Going to order one of each of these," Hunter interrupted, gesturing to the tabletop dessert menu.

Becky laughed. "FIVE different desserts? Really?"

Hunter shrugged. "Why not? Only the best for m'lady," he finished in his fake British accent, which sent Becky into another fit of giggles.

As Simon left to fill their order, Becky shook her head. "I'm really glad you found me, Hunter."

He winked at her. "You're only saying that because I'm bribing you with desserts."

* * *

A brownie sundae, giant warm chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream, a huge slice of red velvet cake, and 2 different kinds of pie later, Becky and Hunter emerged from the Tombs.

"So, m'lady, may I have the honor of walking you home?" Hunter asked, offering his arm with a flourish.

"Why yes you may, but it's not far. I'm in Kennedy," she gestured to a cluster of buildings not far away campus.

"We're neighbors," he smiled. "I scored a single in Reynolds."

"That's impressive," Becky nodded. "How did a freshman do that, exactly?"

"I needed the space for my computers, and so I asked," he replied. "I guess I just got lucky."

"Computers, as in more than one?" Becky couldn't even begin to imagine how much space the kind of computers Hunter would use would take up in a small, single dorm room. If she found out later that he slept in a hammock hanging from the ceiling in order to free up floor space for a 3D printer, she would not have been remotely surprised.

"Yep," he nodded. "Actually...I was thinking…..well, I don't even know if I should even ask this or not, but..."

"What?" Becky demanded playfully. "Spill it or I promise I will make you laugh so hard you'll toss your cookies, like literally."

"Well...," he continued. "I remember you mentioning a long, long time ago how much you liked the Lord of the Rings movies. And, well, there's a MMO game like Realm of Doom, but set in the LOTR universe. Would you maybe want to...well, I have it set up on both of my computers, so you could maybe stop by and try it if you ever wanted to..." he hesitated as he looked down, then back up at her expectantly..

"Hunter Hollingsworth, are you asking me on a _second_ computer date?"

"Uhm, maybe?" he asked hopefully.

"Well, the answer is yes," she grinned. "Can I have your phone?" He handed it over to her wordlessly as she programmed her number in. Hunter put his hands in his pockets as he waited for her to finish. As Becky turned to face him to hand him back his phone, she saw they had already arrived at the front door of the dorm complex. "Let me know the when and where, and I'll be there. And thank you for today. I had a really, really great time." With that, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. She bounded through the doorway and waved back at him. "See you soon."

Ten minutes later, Hunter was still standing there, in the dark, in complete disbelief. As much as he had deeply cared for Arlene, Becky Baker was and had always been the most beautiful girl he had ever met, both inside and out. Even though it had taken him years to admit it to himself, she had been the first girl he had ever, well, not loved, because he still wasn't sure what that felt like - but he'd really, **really** liked her. She had understood his problems with his parents, and with Miles, because she had the same problems. After ten minutes of talking to her online, he'd felt like he'd known her forever. He had been crushed when she had tried to end things with him in the game, knowing they both went to Degrassi, but as soon as Hunter had figured out who she was offline, he still had felt like he had won the lottery. Somewhere in his adolescent brain he had thought that something  could still work out between them. That the girl he talked to and connected so quickly online wouldn't be held back by such a pedestrian concern as a measly 2 years-and-change age difference. He could make it work out. He had to.

Until he couldn't, and she had completely dismissed him, all because he was a stupid niner. It had hurt, a lot. And yes, he had really overreacted, screaming at her in the hallway in front of Imogen and stomping off like the child he realized he had been then. He spent the rest of the year avoiding her as much as he possibly could, but it was like trying to avoid the sun, resplendent in her bright colors with her glowing, omnipresent smile and beautiful laugh down every hallway at school. Determined to hide away in the darkness, Hunter would turn his head away from her and scowl whenever their eyes met in the hallway. Several times she had looked concerned and made overtures to come and talk to him, but he would just narrow his eyes nastily at her and turn to walk the other way. She seemed to give up after a while, and he spent the rest of the year seeking out corners in the shadows when he saw her coming. Becky had burned him more deeply than he had cared to admit, and he wasn't going to give her another opportunity to inflict more pain upon him.

The misery he felt as a result of Becky's rebuff helped him top off the festering pile of anger inside of him that all too often exploded back out at everyone – sometimes even his teachers. It had taken him a long time, a lot of help – Frankie had finally convinced him to go talk to someone, and it literally had been the best decision he had ever made - and a lot of work to whittle that pile down and finally toss it away for good. He had never had the slightest hope that he would ever have gotten another chance with Becky, but when he found out that they were both at the same university – a place where their age difference didn't matter much, they were both adults now, after all - it felt like fate intervening and giving him one more chance to get it right. And it had gone even beyond his wildest expectations. She had not only enjoyed spending time with him, she wanted to do it again. And she had kissed him. Well, sort of.

He smiled to himself as he walked towards the door. He had a lot to do to make their second computer date as epic as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

Becky smiled as her phone buzzed quietly next to her.

 _Good morning, princess._

She quickly typed a response, hoping she wasn't drawing any undue attention to herself.

 _Can't talk now; am in class._ _We still on for later?_

One of her friends from DC Reads, Crystal, noticed Becky's clandestine texting and smirked.

 _Of course. Have you come up with a name yet?_

 _Let's just say you will be pleasantly surprised. ;)_

She clicked her phone off and tried to turn her attention back to the professor – until, that is, she was pinched by Crystal.

"Ow!" Becky yelled a little too loudly.

Her professor looked up at Becky. "Is there a problem, Miss Baker?"

Becky turned crimson as the entire class turned to look at her. "No, sorry, Professor Strutzel. Just a…a cough I can't seem to get rid of."

The older woman seemed to buy her rather lame excuse, at least for now. "Next time you may want to invest in a package of Halls before coming to class," she nodded, then turned back to her computer and where she had left off on the material that was being shown up on the screen.

"What the heck, Crystal?" Becky hissed, rubbing the spot on her forearm where Crystal pinched her.

Crystal looked at Becky knowingly then started to scribble on an empty part of the notebook page.

 _Okay,_ _ **who is he**_ _?_

 _I don't know what you are talking about_ , Becky scribbled back defensively.

 _Oh_ _please_ _. Every time you have gotten a text in the past few days, you get this megawatt smile and get all hot and bothered-looking._

Becky silently gasped. _I do NOT look hot and bothered looking! Now let me concentrate on this; the midterm is next week. You can grill me on the way back to the dorm later._ She was forceful as she dotted the end of the last sentence and glared at Crystal pointedly.

Raising her hands in a gesture that indicated she was letting it go – for now – she raised her eyebrows and went back to scribbling down her notes.

Becky sighed, and then struggled in vain to pay attention for the rest of the class. As much as she really didn't want to admit it, Crystal was dead-on in her assessment. Becky and Hunter had pretty much been texting constantly since their kind-of lunch date at the Tombs two days ago. He was the first person she 'talked to' in the morning and the last one she 'talked to' at night. Hunter was weaving his way into the fabric of what had been a pretty stable, albeit boring, life on campus, and she wasn't sure how to proceed next. It had been such a long time since she had dated anyone at all – Becky wasn't even sure what they were doing was technically 'dating', anyway. Whatever it was, as Drew and Jonah had proven to her, she had a flair for messing it up royally. Was she maybe just not meant to be with anyone in that way? Her religious faith and convictions had always been strong and dependable, and so much a part of her that even the temptation Jonah had offered was not enough to sway her. After spending the past three years interacting with boys who only cared about the one thing she wasn't willing to give them, she had been wondering if maybe she was meant to stay on her path alone, until Hunter had shown up and thrown all predictability about her life out the window. She couldn't ignore the anxiety she had about their date tonight. It wasn't because she was afraid Hunter would act inappropriately – he had shown both in the past and over the last few days that he was a perfect gentleman. She was afraid how SHE might act instead. Hunter was an extremely appealing guy – a guy who she already had to admit that she was attracted to both physically and personally. She hadn't felt like this about a guy since Jonah, and was scared she was doing to do something stupid again.

Becky blinked as she realized that the other students were getting up and picking up their things. Class had ended and she hadn't even noticed.

"Nice notes," Crystal observed wryly as she looked down at Becky's notebook, which was covered in absent-minded doodles.

Becky looked up at her, mouth hanging open, trying to find some kind of excuse.

"Don't worry," Crystal smiled. "You can borrow mine. As long as you promise to tell me every detail about this guy who has you completely spacing in class."

The walk back to the dorm would be quick – as it always was, one of the perks of still living on campus as an upperclassman – but she managed to give Crystal a Cliff's Notes version of her rather convoluted past with Hunter within the first two minutes of their trip.

"Let me see him," she said, grabbing Becky's phone out of her side backpack pocket before she could protest. She began scrolling through her photos and smiled when she reached the one Hunter had sent Becky yesterday. It had been a play on the one he'd sent so long ago – of him holding a "me" paper next to his face, with a broad, unaffected smile.

Crystal whistled. "No wonder you're so hot and bothered."

Becky snatched the phone back out of Crystal's hands. "I am not hot and bothered. I'm just…."

"Becky, everyone deserves the chance to be happy and in love," Crystal stopped her. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be liked that way. And by a guy that looks like THAT? Heck yeah!"

Becky turned bright red. "Of course I know there's nothing wrong with wanting to….date," Becky responded as she put her phone into her backpack pocket. "I'm just so….out of practice. I feel like it's been so long that I don't remember how to act, and if I try, I'll just mess things up. I just want it to, you know, just BE."

"Just be yourself," Crystal said, patting her on the shoulder as they reached the front of Becky's dorm. "Don't think about it as a date-date. Don't think about it at all. Just enjoy it."

Crystal winked and gave a half-wave as she continued walking towards the back of the campus to her next class. Becky bit her lip as she walked towards the main building's door. _I'm not worried that I won't enjoy myself,_ she thought to herself _. I'm worried I might enjoy myself a little_ _too_ _much._

* * *

Becky's bedside clock blasted out a radio alarm as the numbers changed to 6:00pm. She studied herself in her door mirror one last time. She was wearing her favorite yellow dress – the one with the pink belt and whose frilly hem skimmed the back of her knees – and her favorite pink ballet flats. She pulled the pink headband out of her hair, then put it back in for about the third time in as many minutes. She took a deep breath, picked up the small brown paper bag next to the door, and opened it to step out into the hallway.

 _Just be yourself_ , she reminded herself like a mantra. _Everything will be fine._

The trip to Hunter's room took a lot less time than she thought it would. The two times she had pressed the button for the elevator, it had immediately appeared. It felt as if the universe was trying to help her along. It was a good sign.

She reached Hunter's door, gave her hair one last fluff, and knocked.

The door opened quickly, and Becky had to fight a ferocious blush as she saw the look on Hunter's face. It was the same expression Adam used to give her every time he had picked her up for a date.

"Wow, Becky, you look…well, great," Hunter managed to stammer out.

"Thanks," Becky laughed a little nervously. "Here," she smiled as she handed him the paper bag. "I got us cupcakes to celebrate our return to online gaming together."

He peeked in the bag and smiled. "Sweet. Do you want to come in, or…."

"Hello!" a bright voice intoned as a young man practically materialized next to Becky. Becky turned to see a happy face wearing one of the brightest smiles she had ever seen. The young man held out his hand. "Owusu. It is always so nice to meet a friend of Hunter's," he beamed. "Even if she is playing Lord of the Rings and not Star Wars."

Becky shook his hand. "Thank you," she returned his smile.

Hunter looked slightly annoyed. "Now is not the time for this debate, Owusu," he shook his head apologetically at Becky. "Owusu is also a gamer, but he is a Star Wars guy. I've tried to tell him I don't do sci-fi MMOs, but he refuses to give up on me."

"Someday I will bring you over to the Dark Side, Hunter Hollingsworth. But for now I will let you get on with your date with this beautiful young lady." Owusu nodded to Becky and shook her hand again. "It is very nice to meet you. Good night to you both." And with that, he walked back down the hallway.

Becky couldn't suppress a giggle as Hunter let her into the room and sighed, closing the door behind him. "I'm so sorry about that. There are hardly any MMO gamers here, and Owusu has been trying to convert me since the first day of school when he saw me moving all the computer stuff into my room."

Becky shrugged good-naturedly. "That's perfectly okay. I actually thought he was a bit charming, to be honest."

Hunter smirked. "I'll be sure to tell him that the next time I see him," he finished as he offered her his arm. "May I accompany you to your desktop, M'lady?"

It was then that Becky finally got an actual look at Hunter's room.

It was not at all what she had been expecting. First of all, the room was larger than even her room was – it had to be a good 4 or 5 feet longer, for one thing. The bed – and there WAS an actual bed, not a hammock as she had expected – was neatly made, with a futon-like couch placed along the wall across from it. Books were neatly stacked on the shelves and two tidy and organized computer desks faced the large window at the end of the room. She looked up and grinned. Hunter had hung fairy lights from the ceiling and draped them down over the sides of the second computer monitor, and had arranged a garland of fake flowers around the keyboard.

Becky was deeply touched. "You did all this for me?"

Hunter chuckled. "Well I hope you don't think my room usually has twinkly lights and flowers in it," he finished as he nervously ruffled his hair with his free hand. "Do…do you like it?"

"I love it," Becky smiled as Hunter pulled out her computer chair for her.

Hunter leaned over the back of her chair to type in the password for his computer and open the registration page. Becky hadn't been so physically close to a guy since – well, since forever – and she definitely could say now that she had really missed it. Especially how Hunter smelled – it was a pleasant earthy kind of minty scent that brought up happy feelings of being outside camping in the forest as a child. He turned to look at her and gave her a gentle smile, his face a mere inch or two away. Becky felt goosebumps pop up all over her body.

 _Get a grip, Becky,_ she scolded herself.

Hunter stepped back, grabbing his own chair and pulling it up next to her. "So, when do I get to see this super-secret name I've heard so much about?" he winked at her as she began clicking through the options and customizing her character. Becky had decided she had wanted to be an elf princess – she really had this thing about princesses for some reason – and to be a minstrel healer. It seemed like if she actually was in that universe, that that was who she would have been.

"I just hope it's not taken," she teased as she began to type it out. She grinned as the system accepted it, then turned to look at Hunter's reaction. He leaned back in his chair and smiled appreciatively.

"Princess_Excellence, huh? I like the sound of that."

Hunter had decided that since Becky was starting at square one in the game, he would pick out a new character as well. He ended up choosing one that Becky would never have expected – a small, sturdy dwarf warrior. She laughed out loud when he named it Miles_Hollingsworth.

"I thought you said things with you and Miles were good," she asked.

"They are," he smiled as he finished his character set up. "I just find the whole idea of legendary ladies' man Miles being a stout bearded dwarf kind of hilarious."

So Princess_Excellence the elven minstrel and Miles_Hollingsworth the dwarf spent the next 6 hours questing, laughing, getting defeated more than a few times, and, well, there was no other word for it – flirting.

"Have I shown you how to do the emoticons on this game yet?" Hunter had asked her as they finished up their last quest for the day.

"Why, is there a kissing one I should know about?" Becky winked back at him.

"Just for that I WON'T show you then, Mistress Elf," he snorted as he ran over to her in game. His avatar did a backflip in front of her, and then bowed.

"Not fair!" Becky protested. "Now you have to show me!"

Hunter scooted his chair closer to Becky, so now they were only inches apart. He tentatively raised one hand to touch her hair. "I'd rather do this," he smiled gently as he leaned his face closer to her.

Hunter's lips met Becky's softly, and she practically swooned as a feeling of pure delight washed through her. He didn't linger long – he pulled back slowly, pushing a stray tendril of hair out of her face. "I've been wanting to do that since I first saw you sitting on the lawn, princess."

Becky smiled and leaned in close to him, her forehead and nose touching his. "Any chance you might want to do it again?"

* * *

Becky purred contentedly as she snuggled closer to Hunter on the futon couch. "I could stay here forever," she smiled as she looked up at him. She wrinkled her nose as she looked at the clock across the room. "3:30? How did it get so late?"

Hunter unwrapped his arms from Becky and raised them over his head to stretch. "I guess this means it is time for m'lady to be escorted home."

"You – you aren't going to try to get me to….. well," she didn't want to say the words she was thinking, the words she was wanting to say, "…stay with you?" Part of her – a part that seemed to be getting louder and more insistent with every moment she was so physically close to him – was secretly hoping he would say yes.

"That wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me, would it?" Hunter said as he kissed the top of her head gently. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to. But you're a very, very special girl. I'll go where you lead, Becky Baker. Then and only then." He scooted to the edge of the coach and stood up, offering her his hand.

Becky let him pull her up and then pulled him into her arms, holding him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered gratefully.

Becky slowly let her grip on Hunter loosen, and he took a step back, smiling at her appreciatively. "Let's get you back home."


	3. Chapter 3

Hunter smiled as a notification popped up on his phone. He didn't need to check to see who it was from.

What it actually WAS, on the other hand, was a bit of a surprise.

He was racing down the pathway that cut across Healy Lawn, trying his best to get to a study group he had been unwittingly wrangled into. He'd come a long way from being the anti-social teen he'd been the first two years at Degrassi, but if he had his way, he would rather study and do projects on his own. Unfortunately the business school was big on team building and teamwork and all those other lovely buzzwords with the word "team" in them, so he didn't have much of a choice.

He shielded his forehead with his hand to try to see what Becky had sent him, and laughed out loud when he saw it.

Becky had sent him a 'MyManga' video. MyManga, of course, being the app he had invented.

After he finally reached the Lauinger Library door, he found a bench and sat down in the shade. The study group could wait another few minutes. This he had to see.

A blond anime character, looking suspiciously like a Sailor Moon version of Becky, flew up next to a dark-haired opponent who looked suspiciously like himself. The words "choose an attack" popped up on the screen, and a huge bouquet of flowers appeared next to the Becky character, who grabbed the flowers and then catapulted herself into the other character's arms. As her eyes turned into huge hearts, a message popped up:

 _Sorry but I couldn't resist! I thought it would be a better surprise to ask you this way. Hunter Hollingsworth will you be my date to the Business Ball?_

Hunter chuckled to himself and typed up a quick text reply. _Very nice. And the answer of course is yes._

Clicking off his phone, he smiled widely as he got up to head into the library. Things with Becky over the past few weeks had been phenomenal. Outside of classes, and their independent studying, they had been pretty much spending every free moment with each other. They'd leveled up in LOTRO to the point where they could buy their own horses in the game, and had spent 6 straight hours on a Saturday night just running around aimlessly, laughing so hard at each other's pointless observations that Hunter's stomach had hurt even into the next day. Another weekend, Becky had insisted that Hunter HAD to go out into DC and see all the sights, especially the founding documents that were held at the National Archives. When he teased her that he was Canadian and therefore would not be even allowed in the building, she had just rolled her eyes and dragged him there anyway. He later had to (grudgingly) admit looking at the 200+ year old documents in person had been pretty cool.

There of course had been quieter moments too, lots of them. They found that the ease they had naturally with each other, something that had started online while at Degrassi and that first day they had met again here, continued and enabled them talk to each other about pretty much anything. Becky had been the only person outside of his family he had ever felt comfortable talking with about his struggles with overcoming his social awkwardness and anxiety. When he had confessed to her that he still talked to his psychologist back home once a week to help him maintain the progress he'd made, he had been a little afraid she would bolt out the door. Becky then astonished him once again when she hugged him tightly and told him she'd been doing the same thing, every week, since she'd first left Degrassi. He had been angry for her when she had recounted the stories about her family and what had happened during her brother's trial. He couldn't understand how a family that claimed to be Christian would encourage Becky to do something that ran so counter to their faith, and then punish her for doing the right thing. He didn't know what would happen if he were ever to meet the rest of the Bakers, but if he did, he knew he was going to have a hard time not ranting and raving at them for hours about how awfully they had treated a daughter they frankly did not deserve, at least in his opinion.

Most of the time, though, they were perfectly content to just sit silently together and enjoy each other's company. Hunter's favorite times were when they cuddled on the futon and watched movies in his room, because her hair was right up next to his face. He loved the smell of Becky's hair. She had laughed when he had told her this, and said something about a retro shampoo called – she kidded him not – "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" that her mom bought by mail from the Vermont Country Store. It reminded her of happier times, she had said, and he hadn't pressed the issue, but to him it was the smell of just Becky. Of happiness, just for him.

Sometimes those quiet moments were challenging. They did a lot of cuddling, and making out, but Hunter didn't want to press the issue any further, despite the fact that every fiber in his body really, really wanted to, especially when he saw the same yearning reflected back at him in Becky's eyes. He wasn't particularly religious himself, but he had a deep respect for Becky's beliefs and didn't want to broach the subject with her. He told himself she would let him know when she was ready for more. Until then there were cold showers to be had down the hall. That would have to make do for now, at least.

Hunter blinked and brought himself back to the here and now as he stepped out of the elevator to the third floor. Time to make the best of the study group thing, whether he wanted to or not.

* * *

Becky squinted as she put her face right up to her largest mirror, inspecting her makeup for the fourth time. Like most girls her age, Becky struggled with finding the right balance between a natural look and the more Lady Gaga/theatrical approach. She had kept it lighter than she normally would have because of her dress.

 _Oh, the dress!_

Becky originally had no intentions of buying a new dress for the Business Ball. She had plenty of them at home that she could easily ask her mother to send her. But a force of nature named Frankie Hollingsworth had tossed that plan aside that the minute she arrived for a weekend visit just a few weeks ago.

"What?" Frankie had exclaimed when Becky had whispered her plans to her about the dress she was going to wear. "Okay. Sorry Hunter, I love you and I came all this way to see you, but I have to go to the mall. With just Becky. NOW."

With that, Frankie had half-dragged Becky down the hill to the posh Georgetown Park mall, where, ironically, the Business Ball was going to be held. It was a beautiful building, and the school got the private use of entire bottom level of the mall for the celebration. It was magical, or so Becky had been told. This was the first formal dance she would be attending since the makeshift Dot prom at Degrassi.

It felt like days, but Frankie had assured her they had only been trying on dresses for an hour when she suddenly saw The One. Becky had grinned as she had taken the dress into the dressing room, and when she stepped out, Frankie had applauded. It had been a little more money than she had hoped to spend, but Frankie quickly snatched the garment away and waved her hand dismissively at Becky when she tried to pay. "You and this dress were meant for each other," Frankie said as she handed a platinum credit card across the counter to the store's clerk. "It's the least I can do."

Becky stepped back and spun around, smiling as she came to a stop facing the mirror. The dress was perfect. It was a flowing ivory color with thin straps and a beaded trim, with a light pink to magenta ombre on the skirt that ended right below her knees. Frankie had insisted on buying her beaded heels to go with it as well, and despite her protests at the time, she knew Frankie had been 100% right. The shoes truly made the outfit.

With one last flick of her hair, which she was wearing down, she picked up her small clutch bag and sat down on the bed. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She didn't know why she was so nervous. It's not like this was her first date with Hunter, or even her second. She….

A light knock echoed through the room, and Becky turned to look at her clock. Right on the dot, she nodded. She took a deep breath, stood up, and went to open the door.

Hunter had to stop his jaw from dropping as he first saw Becky through the open door.

As a lifelong gamer, Hunter had seen some amazing things. He'd seen Revolution-era Paris depicted in all its glory in Assassin's Creed. He'd seen many beautiful things in person, too. Like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris. The Summer Palace in St. Petersburg.

And Becky Baker, right at this moment, blew them all away.

She stood in her doorway, framed by the light in her room, looking a bit apprehensive, as if she was waiting to see if he would like what he saw or not.

 _What a question!_ She was, as always, absolute perfection.

 _I am literally the luckiest guy on the planet,_ he smiled to himself.

He managed to regain some of his composure, but he couldn't seem to shake the flush in his cheeks. "Wow, Becky, you look, wow…." Words just escaped him.

Becky blushed at his reaction. "You don't look so bad yourself, Mr. Hollingsworth," she smiled as she reached up to straighten his tie. "Very dashing if I do say so."

It was then that he finally remembered he was holding something in his right hand. "Uhm, I know this is probably super-cheesy, but I got you this anyway." He held out the clear plastic box to her.

Becky grinned as she opened it and took out a delicately-laced-together bracelet of fresh flowers. She threaded her right hand through it and stepped back to admire it. "I love it. Thank you." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

There was something about both of them being so dressed up and formal that suddenly made them a little shy around each other. They stood there for a moment in silence, until Becky took his hand and threaded her fingers through his. "Our chariot awaits!" she said with a grin and she led him down the hall towards the elevator.

The pedi-cab Becky had arranged was waiting right outside their dorm entrance, and Hunter smiled appreciatively as he got in next to Becky. Truthfully he was wondering how they were going to get down the Georgetown Park in Becky's high heels and his new and sort-of-uncomfortable dress shoes, and he was glad it was now a non-issue.

It was the perfect night for an event like this one. Despite being the weekend before Thanksgiving break, it was unseasonably warm, and the temperatures even as the sun went down hovered in the 60s. He shifted in his seat and adjusted his jacket coat. He hoped he wasn't sweating too much in it. He wanted to be able to give it to Becky to use if it was chilly later on the way back home.

The pedi-cab stopped in front of the main mall entrance, and Hunter stepped out and helped Becky to the sidewalk. She linked her arm in his as they headed through the door and made their way down to the first level.

"This is SO much better than the Degrassi prom," Becky marveled as she looked around. The Victorian-style glass domed ceilings glittered with twinkling fairy lights, and tables of delicious looking foods were scattered around the first floor. Becky craned her neck to see a DJ playing music in the middle of the floor, with a big area cleared away for dancing. She looked up at Hunter playfully. "Then, of course, I wasn't prom royalty, so maybe it was different for you."

Hunter rolled his eyes. "I thought we were going to pretend that never happened," he grimaced. "And no, this is a million times better," he finished as he turned to give her an intense, meaningful look that made goosebumps pop up on her arms.

Becky's attention was caught by the next song that came on over the speakers. "Come on, we HAVE to dance to this. This is your song, after all," she smiled as she led him to the dance floor.

Hunter swept her into his arms with a puzzled look. Sure, "Nothing Without Love" by Nate Ruess was a great song, but it hadn't been his song, at least not that he was aware of, or anything. He began to mildly panic. Was this playing when we first went to the Tombs or something? Or the Potbelly Deli they stopped by when they were sightseeing? Crap!

Becky saw his concern and laughed. "Don't look so worried. I just, well…" the color in her face rose a bit, "…I kind of heard you singing it one day when I came by to surprise you with those cupcakes last week. Your door was open a crack and I didn't want to come in because I knew you'd stop. You have a really beautiful voice Hunter," she finished quietly.

That was definitely not what he had been expecting her to say.

Becky misinterpreted his silence for irritation. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything," she said apologetically, looking down.

Hunter smiled and put his hand below her chin, gently lifting her gaze back to his, and kissed her deeply.

They slowly pulled away from each other, Becky's forehead resting on his. "It must be you who inspired me. Just promise me one thing?"

She nodded.

"Don't ever ask me to sing in public?"

She smiled and linked her pinky with his.

"Promise."

Becky moved closer to Hunter, wrapping her arms around him and snuggling closer as they slowly moved back and forth to the music. He looked down at the top of her head and smiled. He was indeed the luckiest guy on the entire planet. He didn't know what he had done to deserve Becky Baker, but he was sure whatever it was, it couldn't possibly have been good enough.

They stayed until the dance ended, when the event staff started to not-subtly herd the party goers to the exits. Becky continued to be impressed with how socially adept Hunter had become since those long-ago days at Degrassi. Even though she knew his struggle to manage his social anxiety was still very much an ongoing battle that took a lot of work on his part, to everyone else he appeared to be nothing but a delightful, outgoing young man. She was feeling a bit tired herself, so she knew he had to be absolutely exhausted.

She was happy to see that the pedi-cab was waiting for them once they reached the sidewalk. They both clambered in, a bit more slowly this time, and settled in for the ride back up the hill. Becky rested her head on Hunter's shoulder, and he rested his on top of her head.

"We can't fall asleep," she struggled to hold back a yawn. "We still have to get back to the dorms."

"Sorry I can't hear you, I'm asleep," he mumbled. Becky couldn't hold back an amused chortle.

The cab soon pulled up to the dorm entrance, and the two tired university students managed to get back into a standing position as they headed back through the main doors.

"Before you try to argue with me, I am walking you to your door," Hunter said with a yawn as he walked over to a bay of elevator doors and pressed the button.

"I think I can manage an elevator ride on my own," she smiled sleepily as she reached up to straighten out Hunter's tie again. "You need sleep."

"Too late," he smiled as he stepped through the open elevator doors. Becky sighed exasperatedly and followed him into the elevator.

They slowly loped down Becky's hall to her door. "See, safe and sound," she nodded. She gave him a playful push and then opened her clutch to get her key. "Now you can go get some rest."

"Mmmmm," Hunter was having a hard time forming actual words. He was heady with exhaustion, but also with something else. He didn't know if it was the way Becky smelled, or looked, or just WAS, he just felt intoxicated, even though he hadn't had a drop to drink.

As Becky turned the door handle, Hunter reached over to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

He was intoxicated, alright. He was intoxicated by HER.

Becky seemed to be a bit surprised at first, but then quickly melted into his arms and returned his kiss eagerly. They stepped through her open doorway, wrapped up in each other, and then suddenly tumbled down onto her bed as Becky backed straight into it and lost her balance.

Laughing, she pulled away from their kiss and looked up at him, brushing some stray bangs out of his face. "We're a mess, aren't we?"

That was when it came out. It came out and he didn't know if it was because he was tired, or happy, or confused, or a mix of everything and anything. But it still came blurting out, nonetheless.

"I love you Becky Baker," he half-mumbled happily.

Becky's eyes widened and she touched his face gently. Becky knew that the l-word was powerful, not only for the person who said it, but also the person it was said to. It was not a word she had ever used lightly in her 20-plus years on the planet so far. She felt something strong for Hunter, stronger than she had even felt for Adam, but... love?

"Hunter, I…." Becky started.

Suddenly realizing what he had actually said, Hunter jumped off of Becky's bed and backed up towards the door. "It's…it's late, I'm tired, I should just…go…"

Becky sat up on her bed, curling her feet underneath herself. "Hunter, you don't have to….we can just.." Just what? Keep making out? She had to be honest with herself that that was EXACTLY what she wanted to keep doing. Tonight had been the closest she had ever come to doing, well, the deed, and then Hunter had said the l-word, and…now her head was spinning.

"No, you're right, we both need some sleep," she decided as she got up off the bed and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Hunter. "Want to get breakfast in the morning? Then we can talk more." Good. That would give her more time and a good night's sleep to figure out things.

Hunter nodded numbly. All he wanted to do was go back to his room and hide under his covers. He had never said I love you to anyone outside of his family. A few weeks ago he didn't even think he was sure what that word meant. And now, he was just so tired, and still, well, worked-up. He needed a cold shower first. Then sleep.

He nodded. "G'nite" he managed as he kissed Becky on the top of the head, then ambled to the elevator, tormenting himself with every step. _Well if she didn't think you were a psycho before, she sure will now_ , he admonished himself as he rode down to the main level of the dorm complex. As he crossed the main floor to his own elevator bay, his scowl deepened. Why did he have to say that? Why did it come out?

 _She didn't say it back, either_ , his inner voice reminded him as he stepped out of his dorm elevator and stomped down the hall.

He tried to think rationally. Of course she would have been surprised. It had been a great evening, but a long one. They were tired. They were both eager to have their Thanksgiving break together. His mind had just been jumping around because he was both exhausted and over-stimulated by Becky's nearness to him. He….

God, he needed to go to sleep.

As he arrived as his door, he suddenly heard a female voice call out from behind him, from the common room down the hall.

"Hunter?" a familiar voice asked.

He turned with an incredulous look. "Arlene? What are you doing here?"


	4. Chapter 4

Hunter stretched in his bed, stifling a yawn as he looked back towards his window. The sun was bright – it had to be at least noon now, if not later. His mouth felt liked sandpaper and tasted like it, too. Blech!

He slowly sat up, groggily blinking against the bright light now filling his room, when he spotted her on the futon, curled up in a tiny ball, the comforter wrapped tightly around her.

 _Arlene?_ He was confused. Why was Arlene in his room?

Silently he slipped out of bed, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste as he quietly opened and then closed his dorm door. He was wearing a t-shirt and flannel bottoms – his usual go-to sleep outfit – but he didn't remember putting them on, or how Arlene got into his room.

Hunter splashed cold water on his face and started to brush his teeth. As he slowly started to fully wake up, he began remembering bits and pieces of the night before.

Becky. In that dress. With the way she smelled. Him dropping the l-bomb. Her not saying it back. Him practically running back to his room, berating himself for being so stupid. And then…then Arlene had appeared.

Now he remembered.

Arlene had been sitting in the open common room of his dorm's floor, a small backpack hanging off her shoulder, appearing to be lying in wait for him to return. She had called out to him, and he had answered in complete disbelief. Their breakup hadn't been nasty – it had been amicable, and, at least in his opinion, mutual – but they hadn't been in contact much since then, either. She'd headed to the prestigious MIT in Boston to study engineering, and from the little he heard from her on Facerange (yes, he had finally given in and gotten an account, much to his dismay), she had been loving every minute of it.

Yet here she was standing in front of him, looking a bit disheveled and despondent, at his dorm room door.

"You look really nice," she said quietly.

"Thanks," he almost said with a question mark at the end. _What. Was. She. Doing? Here?_

"Can I come in?" she asked quietly, nodding towards his door.

Hunter fought the urge to sigh loudly. He was so tired, so emotionally spent, that he knew he didn't have anything left in the tank to fight Arlene on this. She was a stubborn girl, and if she was determined to talk to him about something, she was going to do it, whether he wanted to or not.

He unlocked the door and gestured inside. "Come on in," he said defeatedly.

Suddenly a way-too-happy voice popped out in the hallway. "Is everything okay, Hunter? I heard a…" Owusu stopped as he looked at Arlene. "Oh, I'm sorry," he raised his hand in apology and went back into his room.

 _Now I'm going to have to deal with the Spanish Inquisition from Owusu tomorrow on top of everything else_ , Hunter sighed to himself. He slipped off his suit jacket and hung it on the hook behind his door. He gestured to Arlene to have a seat on the futon as he kicked off his still-a-bit-uncomfortable dress shoes and sat down on the bed across from her.

Arlene fidgeted with her hands as she looked at him, then back down again. She looked as if she was going to start to say something, then stopped.

This silent dance between them was going to go on for the rest of the night if he didn't say something. "Look Arlene, I'm glad to see you and everything, but I am really, really tired. Do you want to just crash here and then talk about whatever it is in the morning?" At this rate he didn't think he could even manage a walk down the hall to the showers. He just wanted to crawl under his covers, suit shirt and tie and pants and all, and just SLEEP.

Arlene, never one to pick up quickly on social cues, finally seemed to be getting the hint. "It won't take long, I promise."

So much for sleeping. He reached over to grab a water bottle off his nightstand and took a swig, nodding at her to continue.

"I just….well, that is, I think that…" Her fidgeting became even more intense, so Hunter immediately knew that whatever it was she was going to say would be a doozy. "I just think that us breaking up was a mistake and that we should get back together," she finally managed to finish.

Hunter blinked in surprise. Where on earth was this coming from? He'd barely heard from her since the summer. Maybe 3 messages on Facerange, tops?

Arlene saw his expression and doubled down. "Look, I know it seems crazy, because we've barely had time to talk to each other since the end of Senior year, but…." Then Arlene did something he would never, ever, EVER have expected her to do.

Arlene leapt off the futon, propelling herself onto Hunter and laying a huge kiss on his lips. She started to grab both sides of his shirt collar to pull his head even closer. It felt, well, kinda weird. It felt foreign and strange, almost like he was watching a tv show about himself instead of being there and experiencing it.

He gently pushed her away. "Wow, Arlene, I just….." He took a deep breath as he fought to think of something to say. But he was just too tired, and instead he just sat there, stammering, waving his hand around as if he was about to start making a point, but couldn't.

This apparently was the absolute worst thing he could have done, because Arlene suddenly burst into tears, leapt back onto the futon, and curled up into a tiny ball in the corner, sobbing mightily.

Hunter clasped his hands together and lowered his head. He had to think of something to say to make this stop. He didn't love Arlene, of course, but he cared enough about her to not want to see her this way. He stood up and then sat back down next to her on the futon, gently rubbing her back with his palm.

"Why do I have a feeling this really doesn't have anything to do with us getting back together?" Things couldn't get any worse, so he might as well just say exactly what he was thinking.

Arlene sniffled and looked back up at him. "I'm really, really sorry," she said between sniffles. "Things at school are just…well, they're awful. The work is so much harder than I thought it would be, and the other kids, well…..I thought they would be just like me, but they aren't. I feel so lonely every single day I'm there. I thought coming to see you and us getting back together would make me feel better but..." she wiped her face with the back of her hand, "that was stupid and us being together isn't going to make me like being there at all. I know that now."

"Have you talked to your parents about switching schools?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I CAN'T! Not after….well, you know," she sniffled. Hunter knew exactly what she was talking about. After being tormented for 3 years by the popular girls at Degrassi, Arlene had lorded her MIT acceptance over them – as well as anyone else who would listen to her back home - like a trophy. Dropping out or leaving school was like admitting they had been right about her all along. He knew that.

"Well," he said as he patted her knee and got up to go to his mini-fridge, "have you thought about looking into a tutor? They must have them at MIT too." Hunter spoke from first-hand experience. English class had never his strong point, and since good writing skills were such a backbone for the business school, he quickly realized he needed to get help if he was going to get better. The school had matched him up with a senior English major who, at least at first, he thought he would have zero in common with. The guy was a popular member of the school's crew team and president of the business school's co-ed fraternity. He also, it turned out, was a lifetime founder's member of Realm of Doom. They ended up getting along so well that Hunter had been a bit disappointed when his English grades improved and he had no longer needed the older boy's help.

She looked up at him gratefully as he recounted his own tutor story, smiling at him as he passed her a cup of cold water. "I thought I could do it without anyone else's help, because you know, I never needed it at Degrassi. It would be like giving up. Does that make sense?"

He nodded. "I'll help you look online in the morning, but for now, Arls, I am wrecked and I really, really need to get some sleep. Okay?" She nodded in a half-smile as he grabbed his pjs from the closet. "I'll be right back."

By the time he had brushed his teeth and changed into a tshirt and his flannel pants – again, just too tired to muster up the strength to shower – he came back to his room to find Arlene wrapped up in a ball with his comforter on his futon, breathing softly.

Hunter spit out his toothpaste and looked up again in the bathroom mirror as the final memories from the night before coalesced in his head. So that was where they were at, it seemed.

He headed back to his room, only to find Arlene standing outside in the hall next to his doorway, a peaceful smile on her face.

"Are you leaving?" he asked, a bit surprised. He hadn't felt like she'd been ready to go back to face her issues in Boston at all when he had fallen asleep the night before.

"Thank you for last night, Hunter," she smiled genuinely at him. She stood on her tiptoes, kissed his cheek, and then waved as she started to walk back down the hallway.

Hunter shook his head at her retreating figure, a smile playing at his lips as he walked back into his room. Arlene was nothing if not completely unpredictable. Maybe she had just needed to hear – and face – the situation from someone else, someone she trusted. Despite her abrupt departure, Hunter was fairly certain that Arlene would have everything figured out as soon as she got back to Boston.

One person who most certainly did NOT have everything figured out, however, was Becky Baker.

Becky was pressed up against the hall around the corner from Hunter's room, having overheard the entire conversation at Hunter's doorway. She had almost dropped the bag of cupcakes and two coffees she had been carrying as she spotted the two of them looking lovingly at each other at his door. She had fought a gasp and quickly stepped around the corner so they couldn't see her.

Her face had drained of color as she heard Arlene thank him for 'last night' and then distinctly heard the sound of a kiss.

She tensed, still pressed up against the wall, until she heard Hunter's door close. She peeked back around the corner, a tear rolling down her cheek.

How could he? She couldn't believe this was happening to her. Hadn't he said he'd loved her last night, or had she just imagined it?

 _Who could blame him?_ Her inner voice taunted her _. After all, he's got needs like any other guy does. He got tired of waiting around for you._

She jumped as she heard a soft voice behind her.

"Are those for me?" she turned to see Hunter's neighbor, Owusu, smiling at her.

"Uhm, sure," she stammered, handing him the coffee and cupcakes. "Enjoy!" she exclaimed as she started to walk the other way. She had to get out of there, like NOW.

"Were you not going to go see Hunter? He seems very popular this morning," Owusu noted.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not anymore."

* * *

Hunter struggled to hold down yet another rising tide of anger as he sent off yet another text to Becky. She wasn't responding to any of his texts, and her voicemail immediately picked up whenever he tried to call her number. He had even gone to her room a few times and knocked, hoping to catch her. But she either wasn't there or – what he was afraid was the most likely reason – she was avoiding him.

It was Tuesday afternoon – the day he was flying home for Thanksgiving break – and as he angrily stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes, he wondered how he had screwed this up so badly that Becky didn't even want to talk to him.

 _You scared her off by saying you loved her, idiot_ , he admonished himself for about the twentieth time.

He jumped as he heard a knock on the door. "Come in," he practically barked. Secretly he hoped it was Becky, coming to launch herself back into his arms, cover him with kisses and telling him she adored him as much as he did her.

But it was only Owusu, carrying a bag of what looked like cupcakes and a large cup of coffee. He couldn't help but be amused, and also curious.

"Are these for me?" he asked. Owusu nodded and put them on Hunter's nightstand. "Don't tell me this is yet another bribe for me to play Star Wars online with you."

Owusu smiled and shook his head. "I thought that since I ended up with your first girlfriend's present by mistake, I had to make it up to you by replacing it somehow." He nodded and started to leave the room.

 _His_ _first_ _girlfriend's present? What was he talking about?!_

Hunter needed to know what he meant. "I'm sorry…what are you talking about?"

"Your first girlfriend, Becky Baker?" Owusu asked, looking incredulous that Hunter didn't seem to know what he was referring to. "She came to your room with coffees and cupcakes on Sunday but she saw you were busy with your second girlfriend and gave them to me instead."

 _Oh crap_ , Hunter thought as his face fell into his hands. THAT'S what had happened. Becky must have seen Arlene leaving, and kissing him, and thanking him for the night before, and thought that…

 _Oh, CRAP!_

* * *

"Hello?" Imogen Moreno balanced her phone between her ear and her shoulder as he handed her boarding pass to the now-visibly agitated ticketing agent at the check in counter.

"Miss, I'm still going to have to see your passport," he sighed impatiently, craning his neck to see the very long line of customers behind her.

"Hold on I've got it right….." she fumbled blindly in her backpack with both hands, still balancing the phone on her shoulder.

"Sorry Imogen, you sound like you're in the middle of something, I don't want to bother….," the voice on the other end of the phone offered.

"Oh, it's no bother at all, Hunter Hollingsworth!" she said cheerfully as she handed the ticketing agent the item she had pulled out of her bag.

"Uhm, miss? This is a copy of In Touch magazine," the agent sighed. Again.

"Sorry!" Imogen apologized. Hunter heard the phone made a loud thudding noise and heard more muffled apologies from her and some shuffling sounds. Finally he heard her voice more clearly again. "Sorry about that. I guess my New Year's resolution to stop multi-multitasking is shot. Thank you!" he heard her exclaim again.

Hunter honestly wasn't sure if he was talking to him or the ticket agent.

He heard some more shuffling, and another thud as the phone seemed to fall on the ground again, a muffled "Fudgesicles on a stick!" and then more shuffling, then a "Geez. I'm amazed my phone still works. That's the fourth time it's fallen on the floor just today!"

Hunter didn't really know what to say in response to the whirling dervish that was Imogen at the moment. "Uhm I can call you back…later?" he offered.

"No no no I can talk now, really," Imogen insisted. "Especially because you are definitely going to need my help."

Hunter knew exactly what she was talking about. "Of course you already know….."

"Best friend, remember?" Imogen added. "Becky's really, really upset. But I told her I had a strong suspicion that there was a lot more to what she saw than what she THINKS she saw. I hope I was right," she finished in a strange hybrid of both hopeful and scolding tones that only Imogen would ever be able to pull off.

"Of course it wasn't what it looked like!" Hunter exclaimed impatiently. He felt his tide of irritation rising higher and higher. He had to get things back under control or he was going to blow a fuse. In the back of a DC cab on the way to the airport. Which would not be good.

He took a deep breath and continued. "Arlene just…showed up at my door, and was crying about….," he didn't want to spill secrets that weren't his, so he chose his next words carefully, "…about something that had happened at school. Then she pretty much jumped me and thought that us getting back together would solve all her problems. I put a stop to that pretty quick. Then we both crashed and she went home the next day." The words were all tumbling out now. "I can't believe Becky would think I would cheat on her with Arlene, after everything we've…" Now he stopped. Some things he neither would nor should share with even a trusted confidante like Imogen. "I didn't even know what she was upset about until I was practically walking out the door a few minutes ago. Now she's blocking my number AND my texts. How am I supposed to let her know what actually happened if she won't talk to me?"

Imogen sat silently on the other end, contemplating the best course of action.

"Are you SURE there's no way you can talk to her?" Imogen asked, this time a little TOO hopefully.

A light bulb of inspiration went off in his head, but it was not one he was remotely happy about. "The Degrassi reunion party?" he asked weakly. He had been mocking it ever since he had first heard about it back in September. Even Becky's imploring and Imogen's being the organizer of the event had not swayed him into attending. It was literally THE last place he wanted to be while he was home on his vacation.

"It would especially help if it was something big, you know, something Becky wouldn't expect." He could practically hear Imogen salivating on the other end of the phone.

He sighed and held his head. "You have something in mind already, don't you?" Something awful, he was sure. He suspected it was also something that he would also live to regret for a very, very long time….


	5. Chapter 5

Becky hovered around the teacher's lounge, arranging and re-arranging the banquet plates for what felt like the hundredth time.

She sighed, sat down on a nearby chair, and looked forlornly at the door.

 _Why did I agree to still go through with this?_ Becky lamented to herself. Ever since she had discovered Hunter and Arlene together, romantically entwined outside his dorm room door, she had been cloaked in an overwhelming fog of complete and utter disappointment and disbelief as to why things like this kept happening to her when it came to boys.

She'd lost Adam completely, Drew had betrayed her multiple times, and Jonah had stolen from her. Should she really have been all that surprised when Hunter had ended up cheating on her?

 _You don't know what actually happened, though_ , a little voice that sounded a lot like Imogen piped up in her head. Maybe it was because Imogen had been the one to say it, multiple times, ever since Becky had called her Sunday morning, crying for a half an hour on the phone before she could even get one word out. But the hurt had been too familiar, and this particular time, a little too overwhelming. She just didn't – she COULDN'T – hear his excuses, like she had for Drew and Jonah. She couldn't let him back in, only to end up hurting her again and breaking her heart again. She had to block his number so she couldn't get his texts or calls. She had to just be DONE. That was the only way she could keep herself safe.

 _And lonely,_ Imogen's voice popped up in her head again.

"Leave me alone Imogen!" she yelled out to the empty room, dropping her head into her hands.

"What did I do now?" a familiar, very-real voice responded back.

Becky looked up, startled to see Imogen standing there, balancing two empty food trays in her hands.

Seeing her bestie in such a state of overwhelming misery, Imogen dropped the trays on the nearest empty table and rushed over to hug her friend.

"Becky, I can't stand seeing you like this!" Imogen lamented as she released Becky from her bear hug.

"I don't know what to do, Imogen," Becky replied, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. "I really, really thought he was….." She stopped abruptly. That he might have been "the one" with a capital T? That wasn't something she was ready to say out loud to anyone, even Imogen.

"You need to hear his side of the story, Becks," Imogen said gently. Becky sat up as if to start to protest again, but Imogen quickly interrupted her. "Putting up these walls keeps out heartbreak, dearest Becky, but it also keeps out the good things, like love. I know other guys have really, really screwed you over, and you have every right to be hurt, but…well, you know this one is different. Even I know it and I'm not even the one that was dating him!"

The thought of Imogen and Hunter out on a date made Becky burst into a fit of giggles.

Imogen immediately protested this reaction of disbelief on Becky's part. "Hey, it could totally happen!"

Becky shook her head, wiping all-together different kinds of tears off her face as she continued to laugh. "You have no idea the visual I am seeing in my head right now."

"Fine then," Imogen stood up in a mock huff. "Since you seem to be feeling much better now, you can come out to the actual party and help me." She grabbed Becky's elbow. "Up you get."

"Imogen, I can't go out there and…" She really couldn't. Honestly. It wasn't like there was any chance that Hunter would be at the Degrassi reunion party, because she hadn't been able to convince him to go even when things had been going really well between them. But she didn't really want to see anyone else either – not because she didn't like them, she just dreaded the conversations that would inevitable come up. One innocent "so Becky, how are things going?" would probably send her running to the restroom in a torrent of tears.

"Don't worry, you can hide in the back and replenish the food table while the musical entertainment is going on," Imogen assured her. "They'll all be watching the stage and no one will see you. Then you can scurry back in here. I promise." Imogen looked imploringly at her friend, clasping her hands together. "Pleeeeassssssseeee?"

"Fine!" Becky gave up. If it was only for a minute – and she wouldn't have to talk to or see anybody, then…well, what harm could it do?

* * *

Imogen raced away from the teacher's lounge and back into the auditorium, trying to catch her breath as she took a quick right to the stage steps and ducked behind the curtain. She'd just finished loading up Becky with trays and supplies and telling her to wait outside the doorway until she heard the music playing.

 _This HAS to work!_ she assured herself as she looked for Hunter.

Hunter was standing there, starting down dumbly at the microphone in his hand. His complexion looked waxy and he looked very, very queasy.

"It's gonna be GREAT, Hunter!" Imogen proclaimed as she wrapped one arm around Hunter's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"I'm going to throw up," Hunter said quietly. "I can't believe I let you talk me into doing this." Actually, he had felt like he was going to throw up ever since he had first heard Imogen's grand plan. Singing? IN PUBLIC? In front of PEOPLE HE ACTUALLY KNEW? On his very long list of things he didn't ever want to do, this was near the top. This was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

"Come here," Imogen dragged Hunter to the side curtain and pulled a small part of it to the side. "Look." Hunter peeked out of the small corner to see where Imogen was pointing and saw Becky silhouetted in the hallway, holding her trays of food.

"SHE is why you are doing this!" Imogen said brightly as she dropped the curtain and marched him back to center stage. "You wanted to have a chance to tell her how you feel, so just go ahead and do it!" The student musicians setting up behind her looked at Imogen and her flailing arms warily.

After giving Hunter one more hearty pat on the back, Imogen grabbed the microphone and stepped through the curtain onto the stage.

"Welcome, returning Degrassians!" Imogen's voice echoed throughout the auditorium and above the sound of appreciative applause. "I hope you have all been having a blast so far. Next up we have a very special musical tribute to a very special Degrassi grad. Enjoy!"

Becky, who had taken this opportunity to slip through the doorway she'd been standing in to scurry over behind the refreshment table, looked up in curiosity at the last part of Imogen's introduction. That was funny...she didn't seem to remember Imogen mentioning anything about a special tribute song before…..

 _I am nothing without love_

 _I'm but a ship stuck in the sand_

Becky's skin began to tingle. _I know that voice…._

 _Some would say that I'm all alone_

 _But I am….nothing without love.._

 _It couldn't be,_ Becky said to herself. _That would be impossible._

Suddenly the curtain was pulled back on the stage to reveal Hunter Hollingsworth, standing in the middle of the stage, looking hugely uncomfortable as a full complement of student musicians and choral singers stood at the ready behind him.

Becky was transfixed. Suddenly Hunter's eyes found hers, and he seemed to visibly relax.

A few students in the front row clapped and whooped, cheering him on.

Hunter started to walk slowly towards the stairs on the stage as he continued singing, his eyes never leaving Becky's. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs and began to walk down the middle aisle, the song, choir and musicians were all in full swing.

 _Three years at sea after the storm_

 _This sinking ship that love has put me on_

 _God I wish a gust of wind would come and carry me home_

 _But I…I've got nowhere to go_

 _Now here you show up with the force of a wave_

 _So I set my sails , headed for the Empire State_

 _I don't want to lose this one, she makes me feel whole_

 _You know I am nothing without love._

Becky didn't really hear the rest of the actual song – well, she DID hear it, but she wasn't really paying attention to it. All her focus was on Hunter, doing something she knew absolutely terrified him. And in front of almost everyone they knew, no less.

For HER.

By the time he finished, he was standing right in front of her. The audience stood up and applauded, cheering wildly, but Becky could barely register their presence. For her, in that moment, it was just her and Hunter. No one else mattered.

She reached up to brush some stray hair from Hunter's forehead. "You did all that for me? Why? After I've been so awful, and…."

Hunter leaned forward to interrupt her with a deep kiss, eliciting even more whoops and cheers from the crowd around them.

They slowly pulled apart, resting their foreheads against each other. "If me singing in public doesn't prove to you that absolutely nothing happened with me and Arlene, I don't know what will," Hunter smirked.

Becky smiled back at him. "I am so, so sorry, Hunter. I was…I was scared. But I'm not anymore."

She looked down, took a deep breath and looked back up at him straight in the eyes.

"I love you, Hunter Hollingsworth."

He smiled. "Just remember who said it first." As a mock-offended look began to form on her face, he quickly put a stop to it with another kiss.

Imogen, who was still standing on the stage, wiped a tear away. "I'm such a sucker for happy endings."

* * *

Hunter Hollingsworth gently took Becky by the elbow and helped her out of the passenger seat of their rental car. She grabbed his arm with both hands.

"It's not much farther now, I promise," he smiled as he led a blindfolded-Becky down a gravel pathway.

He slowly led her onto the grass, then stepped behind her to untie the blindfold.

"Your wedding present," he grinned as he stepped back to watch Becky's reaction.

They were standing in a grassy courtyard next to a small stone castle. The archway at the end of the enclosure led to the forest, while the greenery that surrounded them was covered in a smattering of wildflowers. It looked exactly like the place where they had had their first "date" in Realm of Doom, all those many years ago.

"Our special place," Becky breathed. "You actually found our real-life special place!" She jumped into his arms and covered him with kisses.

"You haven't even seen the inside yet," he winked. "Join me, Mrs. Hollingsworth?"

"It would be an honor, Mr. Hollingsworth," she smiled back.


End file.
